ought to be yours in heaven."

George took out the ornament again and looked at it seriously. He had a considerable strain of the Puritan in his nature, to which the idea appealed strongly. "I shall certainly not refuse life's cross," he declared soberly, "and may we both some day wear a crown in a better world."

"My darling, my dearest, my best," she murmured, embracing him fondly. The touch of seriousness in George's gay disposition enhanced his value in her eyes. She approved of so sterling a character.

"Where did you get the cross?" asked Walker, while the jewels winked in the sunshine. "From your father?"

"No!" she replied unexpectedly. "He doesn't know that I possess such a thing. But my nurse, old Bridget Burke--Tim's mother, you know--who died last summer, gave it to me on her death-bed and warned me not to tell my father about it. She said that it came from my dead mother, and was to be given by me to the man I loved. So you see, my darling, that even though it is a woman's ornament, you must take it."

"I'll wear it round my neck," declared George. "It will bring me good luck, I am sure."

"So Bridget said," observed the girl promptly. "She had the 'sight,' you know, George, and declared that the cross would bring me luck and money and love and position. I don't know how, unless it is by marrying you."

"Ah, my love," said George somewhat sadly. "I can only give you my heart. Money and position must come later. But if we both obey the inscription and bear the cross we shall win the crown of success in the end. Look how the gems flash, Lesbia--an earnest of the future."

While they were both admiring the cross, a tall, lean man, perfectly dressed in a Bond Street kit, came softly down the grassy path. He looked like a gentleman, and also like a hawk, and his pale eyes wandered from one bent head to the other until they dropped to the flash of the jewelled cross, which glittered on Walker's palm. Then the newcomer started nervously, and took a step nearer to observe. Lesbia and her lover looked up as the shadow of the man fell across them, and in the movement they made, the cross fell on the grass.

"Oh, father, how you startled us," cried the girl, springing to her feet.

Mr. Walter Hale did not reply. His eyes were still on the purple stones of the cross, and when his daughter 

 Prev. P 12/221 next